Daycare staff crime checks required

N.S. rules now stop centres from using workers without background documents

Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Karen Casey announced stricter rules for childcare staff without criminal background or child abuse registry checks. (FILE)

Nova Scotia’s Education and Early Childhood Development minister introduced new regulations Thursday that will prevent provincially licensed daycares from allowing staff who have not completed criminal background and child abuse registry checks from working with children.

“We have a responsibility to the child and to the parents to ensure that their child is safe and that the people who are working with their children have no criminal record and are not on the child abuse registry,” minister Karen Casey said in an interview Thursday.

Department staff recently informed Casey that over the past two years, several regulated daycares in Nova Scotia hired staff and allowed them to work with children without both these checks in place, in violation of their operating licence. Staff also pointed out gaps in the regulations that allowed this to happen.

Under the changes, expected to be in place in early fall, that practice will no longer be permitted.

And, if the centre has staff who do not have these checks on file, the employees will be prohibited from working with children until the record checks have been obtained.

There is a current review of the regulations that support the Day Care Act.

“We are making sure that the changes in the regulations do address what I perceive to be a problem, and that is the safety of children needs to be priority No. 1,” Casey said.

As of 9 a.m. Thursday, five daycares with a combined staff of nine members were still in violation of those checks. By noon, just three were still on the list.

The following daycares were cited to be in violation:

•A Bungalo’ Fun Learning Centre, Truro

•Kids & Co. Ltd. Dartmouth, Dartmouth

•Peter Pan Daycare Centre, Sydney

•St. Joseph’s Children’s Centre (Lacewood), Halifax

•Wee Care Developmental Centre, Halifax

Casey has ordered staff to follow up with the centres immediately to ensure compliance. To her knowledge, no child in any of these centres has been harmed due to the violations.

The minister also sent a memo to all daycare operators Wednesday reminding them of their obligations under the act, a copy of which can be found at www.ednet.ns.ca.

Currently, when a child-care operator has a licence violation on their file — including non-compliance for these checks — they are given 30 days to comply. With the new regulations expected to be in place in early fall, that grace period will be gone.

In the meantime, staff who are currently at centres without both these checks completed cannot be in contact with any child without supervision.

There’s also been work done to expedite the wait time to have these checks done.

“And we’re down now to about a 10-day turnaround,” Casey said.

There are 398 daycare centres operating in the province.

“So, we’re talking about a small number of daycares that have been in violation,” Casey said. “So I want the message to be clear that overall in the province we have daycare operators and owners who are working in the best interest of safety of children.”